SUV does have an owner

This week Watchdog brings you the epilogue to several problems reported previously:

It appears the sport utility vehicle that a reader said was abandoned in a horseshoe-shaped median in the 3400 block of Hilldale Place has an owner after all.

Khalil Jett, who lives across the street from the median, called to say the Ford Explorer had been parked there for only about a month, not .

He forgot to set the emergency brake a few days after Labor Day and it rolled down the hill, denting the fender and damaging the crankshaft, he said. Jett planned to get the SUV repaired after he had saved enough money, and he said he didn't realize it was bothering anyone.

It's too late for Jett to move it himself, however. Transportation personnel gave him a warning Oct. 3 and towed the SUV to an impound lot Oct. 5.

Drivers are not allowed to park cars, with or without plates, in medians, said Adrienne Barnes, spokeswoman for the city's department of transportation. "He just can't leave it there, even if he turns his plates in," she said.

But lots of people in his community use that space as a parking annex, Jett said. And as long as no one complains, Barnes said that's OK, too.

"We like to let neighbors work out their own things," Barnes said. "As long as it's not impeding vehicle or pedestrian movement, we don't bother them."

In another continuing saga, Watchdog reader Peg Massey wrote to report that the new Curran memorial clock tower in Govans still does not show the correct time.

"It is lovely, a real addition to the neighborhood," she wrote in an e-mail.

In July, Watchdog reported that the Govanstowne Business Association was awaiting city permits to hook up to a permanent power supply.

Now, the association still needs to have meters installed by the department of transportation activated. After that's completed, transportation workers will finish the connection.

In a final matter, a new bus shelter now sits at Cedonia and Radecke avenues, replacing one

Unfortunately, Edna Moore Bedford, the Watchdog reader who reported the structure missing, never got to enjoy its shade.

The avid reader of The Sun and the Afro-American died on July 25, just 10 days after the article ran. She was 71 years old.